The solution has already been test driven by Munich-based engineering conglomerate Siemens. Siemens "SmartStorage" offered 330,000 employees in over 150 countries a hybrid enterprise file-sync and sharing application that encompassed three petabytes of data, across four global data centers.

“The project stemmed from EMC, but after seeing what together we enabled Siemens to do, Atos was interested in working directly with Syncplicity all around the world,” Jon Huberman, president and CEO of Syncplicity told CMSWire.

“The coordination and project management of this extreme scale storage consolidation and EFSS deployment project required a strong implementation partner — Atos — that has the technical experience and global presence to ensure the rapid digital transformation of both IT infrastructure and end-user experience.”

But it’s only the beginning. Over the coming months and years, the joint offering will provide the user experience, security, storage choice flexibility and scalability to enable digital transformation in enterprises of all sizes, Huberman said.

The partnership fits into Syncplicity’s broader go-to-market plan to expand its channel and partner ecosystem to reach target audiences.

Understanding the Enterprise's Storage Needs

Huberman pointed out that Bezons, France-based Atos has strong relationships with large companies that outsource IT infrastructure, which will allow Syncplicity to extend its reach in the marketplace and the opportunity to deepen existing conversations with those customers.

Huberman was quick to discredit any comparisons to Box, Dropbox or Microsoft OneDrive. In spite of surface similarities, he said this solution offers more flexibility and more options for security-conscious enterprises.

Users can choose to store their files on-premises, in a public cloud, in a private cloud — or any combination therein.

“We chose that model because it’s the only one that works for today’s global enterprises, where all files cannot be treated equally due to differing privacy, compliance, data residency and corporate policy requirements,” Huberman said.

“We have the DNA of an enterprise storage company, we know enterprises. We’re not trying to take a consumer product and make it work for enterprises. We’ve built something for the enterprise, with the needs of the enterprise in mind, from the beginning unlike several other solutions in the market.”

Where Syncplicity Has an Edge

Syncplicity integrates tightly with Microsoft’s Office 365 and Azure cloud storage. And for the moment, it appears to have the upper hand in the wider EFSS market. However, Huberman says that that market dominance is far from total:

“The whole notion of the Microsoft OneDrive solution being free is carrying them in adoption, but it’s not going to be forever. When we talk to CIOs about Microsoft, the old free pitch is compelling, but the most fundamental issue they’re thinking about is — if Microsoft already owns all my apps, do I want to give them all my data too?” he said.

"Many enterprise customers assess high levels of risk to storing potentially sensitive data on a third-party public cloud infrastructure like OneDrive for Business whereas the hybrid model offers the flexibility to keep confidential data on-premises or in private clouds."

Where Digital Transformation Intersects with EFSS

Digital transformation requires IT organizations to re-think how they provide services to their end users. It's a competition between the consumer tools that employees use in their personal lives and the often outdated systems they're confined to in their day-to-day work life.

Huberman said that Syncplicity sees its business opportunity around digital transformation as a way to provide large, global enterprises with a path forward when cloud-only is not an option, but where internal pressure is building to transform the way business is conducted.

In practical terms this means securely sharing data internally and externally and being able to access information from anywhere, anytime, on any device.

As a result, Huberman sees the interface of digital transformation and EFSS happening in three different areas:

1. Digital Workplace

Organizations are empowering and mobilizing their workers to collaborate in real-time with seamless access to content anywhere, anytime and from any device. Real-time backup of all files, in any folder, through EFSS provides continuous availability.

2. Data Governance

Most EFSS solution now offer anywhere, anytime access to all data, without compromising on content protection, privacy or compliance by group-based security policies and data residency controls.

Syncplicity’s roadmap for this year looks to tackle those trends with a number of Microsoft Office in-use file notifications for end-user file collaboration, and features to support migration and replacement of network file shares, making petabyte-scale file shares usable on any device.

It will also offer e-Discovery, legal hold, data loss protection support and EU data sovereignty features by the end of the year.

3. Enterprise scale

The ability to scale demands features that support large EFSS deployments. New features for 2016 include content migration tooling and new connectors, administrative controls, APIs and system architecture enhancements.